Never My Second Choice
by Miss Phyllis Baxter
Summary: After receiving the letter from the Dreadfort (from page 994-995 in A Dance with Dragons), Melisandre's reaction is to close off the entire world, while wallowing in her despair. Until three nights later, she receives a very special guest.


_**Never My Second Choice**_

**By: **shadowofdragonstone

**Ship:** Stannis x Melisandre

**Word Count:** 1277

**Summary: **After receiving the letter from the Dreadfort (from page 994-995 in A Dance with Dragons), Melisandre's reaction is to close off the entire world, while wallowing in her despair. Until three nights later, she receives a very special guest.

Melisandre clutched the letter they had received from the Dreadfort in her hand, reading it over and over again while laying on her bed, the one that felt so uninviting without Stannis. Tears formed in her eyes, evaporating before they touched her cheeks. She had stayed at the Wall in a selfish bought of wanting to be stronger than ever before and now her king was dead. It was all her fault and she knew it. King Stannis was everything to her; her king, her messiah, her love. She loved him and now he was gone. How could she go on in her life without him? She assumed that sooner or later, she would need to pick up the pieces of her life, go back to Asshai and just exist, because she knew she could never truly live without him.

She had been empty for three days now. The first day, she had not accepted his death and when she could no longer deny it, she had thrown a fit, throwing things that she shouldn't have across the room and screaming before she collapsed on her bed and started crying. The second day had consisted of walking back and forth from his bedchamber to her's and down to the stables every so often. Many had tried to speak with her, but she had simply ignored them all. When she returned to her own bedchamber for the last time that day, Devan and Selyse had both come in and tried to talk to her, but all she had done was lay on her bed and face the wall, occasionally trying to draw out Stannis' scent from the pillow that he had slept on before he was left, only to find that his scent was fading from everything of her's. And now, on the third day, all she had done was lay on her back, facing the ceiling, ignoring Devan when he came in to see if she wanted food or anything to drink. _Nothing means anything without him. Maybe R'hllor will just let me die, _she thought. _I never even told my king that I loved him, he died feeling like a second choice. He was never my second choice, it didn't matter what was going on, Stannis was the one I relied on. And I've failed him._

Eventually, she heard the door open and Selyse's footsteps approaching her bed, sitting down on it. She desperately wanted to tell the woman to go away, but she remained silent. Selyse however, did not. "Lady Melisandre, I don't see what the matter is. Yes, Stannis is gone but it shouldn't affect you all that much. He was just your Champion, your King. He was my husband, and I'm coping without him. Shireen has lost her father, and she's coping. She just silently sits and reads in her bedchamber. All you were was an adviser and a priestess, on occasion, the two of you would serve the Lord in other ways, but it wasn't love between you. Stannis couldn't love, his heart was cold and unyielding as ice. I know it is a horrible thing for a woman to say of her husband, but it is true. You need to find a way of coping, my Lady," she said. She sat in the uncomfortable silence for a while before getting up and leaving without another word while Melisandre's eyes remained glued to the ceiling.

_Selyse never loved him, she didn't realize what he meant to me. He was my everything and she doesn't see that. I loved him the way she never did. Maybe she was right about him not loving me though, because if he truly loved me, he would not let me suffer this pain of living without him. _A little while later, her tears started again and when night fell, for the first time in a very long time, she felt cold. She stood up and slipped from her bedchamber into Stannis' and found a cloak of his and brought it back with her. It still smelled like him, and while she wondered what his reasons were, she was glad he had left something behind. She curled up on her bed and took the letter in her hand once again.

_Your false king is dead, bastard. He and all his host were smashed in seven days of battle. I have his magic sword. Tell his red whore... I want the false king's queen. I want his daughter and his red witch. _It pained her to think that Stannis had probably been tortured by this maniac before he had died. The man she had loved was probably ripped apart, or flayed by this Bolton bastard and she had been unable to see it in the flames, unable to save him, unable to prevent it from happening. She was truly a failure. She smuggled deeper into Stannis' cloak, though it wasn't as large as she had hoped (he was a small man, not in height, but in weight), it protected her and she felt safe. It was like being in her king's arms. This man though, like many in Stannis' army thought of her as his whore, even though she wasn't. He was everything to her and she would do anything for him, but she was not a whore. She was driven bitter by the thought that this bastard had killed Stannis, taken Lightbringer and had the audacity to demand Selyse, Shireen and herself. She refused to go, because she knew that if she did, the bastard would dangle her dead king in front of her, which would break her heart. After some time of crying and clutching her king's cloak to her, she fell asleep. She didn't often need sleep, but after all the stress of the last few days, she quit fighting it. _Hopefully I never wake up from this sleep. _

She was awoken by a movement of the bed. She jolted up to see her king's figure by her bed, his silhouette outlined by the flames. He cast the most wonderful shadow on the wall beside her bed. "I thought you were dead," she whispered as he sat down on the bed, clad in only his shirt and britches. "The letter said you were dead."

"I escaped, we were beaten," he said. "Many of my men who survived the battle were taken prisoner and flayed." Melisandre's hand went to his arm and stroked gently.

"I've only just got back, and I'm tired."

"Rest, my king," she said, pulling his cloak and giving him room to lay underneath. "I'm glad you're not dead. I've been depressed for three days now without you. And now that you're here, I want to tell you some things that I know I've never said before. First of all, I love you with all my heart, my king." She was interrupted by his small laugh that she rarely heard.

"Couldn't get your first pick then? Jon Snow's taking his vows very seriously, isn't he? If I were him, I'd probably have broken the Night's Watch vows with you," he said, not intending for it to come out the way it sounded.

Melisandre's eyes filled with tears again. "I love you, and while you may not agree, you are not always a second choice to everyone. You will always be my first choice. You will never be my second choice," she whispered, putting her arms around his body and holding him to her. He hesitated before wrapping his own arms around her. He softly kissed her hair, making a silent promise to her.

_Just as you could never be my second choice, my Lady. _


End file.
